JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR
Special to The Jewish News
R
ight now, Larry Wyatt is
probably cursing Pharoah.
You see, if it wasn't for
the reluctance of the
ancient Egyptians to let Moses' people
go, Wyatt, West Bloomfield Shopping
Center Market's assistant manager, most
likely wouldn't be chest deep in matzah
while scurrying to manage the extra
dozen employees he had to hire to help
with the Passover rush.
ver -„,..„40m,akavogRA,
. • .
the Jewish holiday brings. Besides hir-
ing extra workers, the store must clear
shelves to house the holiday-specific
foods that were ordered by the hun-
dreds of cases, and put up with last-
minute shoppers on last-ditch runs
who are soured by the long lines and
at times fruitless hunt for precious
products.
While a few errant grumbles can
be heard, most area grocers are happy
for the big surge because the holiday
also brings a few extra dollars to their
tills.
Extra workers were hired to stock the
shelves just as the first customers,
buoyed by the holiday spirit, tramped
into the store right after Purim.
"This is a major effort, no question
about it," he said.
Getting the customers in the door
is pretty much a given at this time of
the year. But the actual volume of
customers and how much they will
buy varies from store to store, from
year to year.
This is due in large part to the
pricing on staples like matzah and
'''''
4ilidg.Ellie picks /fr
Passover items at Krogen
IWNWAN.Ougg5A.
The 11th Pla
Shoppers swarm markets for Passover goods, emptying aisles and filling the tills.
He also wouldn't be surrounded
by customers short on temper and
long on needs for their holiday table,
including the hard to find, brand
new, Pesachdic blintzes from
Kineret.
"When it starts getting closer to
the first night of Passover, panic starts
setting in," Wyatt said. "Cake mixes
and things they need for entertaining
may be low or out of stock and lines
are inevitably longer. That's when you
just want the holiday to be over."
Grocers from West Bloomfield to
Oak Park have spent the last three
weeks scrambling to keep up with the
temporary but intense demands that
•
4/2
1999
10 Detroit Jewish News
el ; tp
Wyatt began
preparing for the
I MF „i,
"
t 1144t,
holiday early this
eaklie M
year when he
Mallan
began ordering
Grocery stores spent weeks
products for the
West Bloomfield
hiring extra help, clearing space
portion of the
and stocking tons of food
local supermarket
chain. He chose
for the Paisover holiday.
items from the
tried and true
Jerusalem Matzah
kosher-for-Passover grape juice. Mike
(six tons' worth) and Mother's
Cremen, grocery manager for Meijer
Whitefish Gefilte Fish (2,400
n Royal Oak, said some years he
pounds) to the modern blintzes from
moves several hundred cases of both
Kineret (a few cases to test them).
Y.
items simply because they were priced
lower than competitors.
"People look in the ads to see who
has the lowest price on those items
because they know they will need
them," Cremen said.
Another major draw for shoppers
is a store's variety of Passover goods,
including some new hot items. A
couple of years ago, when interesting
flavors of macaroons hit the shelves,
shoppers raced around looking for
specific brands and certain flavors.
But mostly, customers seek a large,
well-stocked selection. At Farmer
Jack, for example, eight stores nor-
mally carry kosher goods on a regular
basis, but from the early days of
March until the first week of April,
14 stores in the chain will crry
Passover products. During a non-
Passover week, Farmer Jack stores wil
sell about 60 pounds of matzah, 50
packages of matzah meal and 40 soup
mixes. During Passover, those num-
bers swell to 60,000 pounds of
matzah, 4,000 boxes of matzah meal
and 1,500 soup mixes.
During the week of Passover,
Farmer Jack will sell 57,000 pounds
of Empire turkey and the only super-
vised fish counter in the state will hire
extra workers to handle the massive
influx of customers who come to have
their fish ground for gefilte fish.
"We are in the business to service
the needs of the customer," said Paul
Coleman, vice president of advertis-
ing and marketing.
And the stores have to be prepared
for the onslaught. Huge-volume cen-
ters, like the Kroger stores, schedule
workers' shifts to meet the demand.
"We may not hire extra workers but
we will invest a lot.of extra time in
terms of stocking our shelves, in
terms of displays," said Michael
Layne, spokesperson for the Kroger
Company of Michigan.
C
Smaller stores like One Stop
Kosher in Southfield feel the strain
the busy holiday season brings to
their staff. They add more employees
to help meet shoppers' needs.
"We have customers coming from
West Bloomfield, Ann Arbor -- all
over," One Stop owner Benji
Silverstein said of the increase in busi-
ness during Passover. "It is hard to say
now how many people we will be hir-
ing, but I am sure we will have to hire
”
more.
The distributor for Manischewitz
and Raskin horseradish, Kehe Foods
in Romeoville, Ill., would not reveal
the amount of matzah or horserad-